It’s somewhat surprising that with so many RPGs available on the Nintendo 3DS, the old-school dirt simple hack & slash sub-genre is somewhat underrepresented. Granted, you’re probably not going to get a fancy looking Diablo or Torchlight-style game up and running on the 3DS hardware without some miracle coding skill and Nintendo completely missed the boat on localizing the fantastic DS game Soma Bringer to the west some years back. Thankfully, Rising Star Games has taken up the chase ‘n chop mantle with Ishi-Sengoku-Den “Sadame” (heretofore shortened to Sadame for the remainder of this review).
The game takes the basic formula found in Blizzard’s classic franchise and adds a feudal Japanese setting, simplified gameplay and multiple routes through four acts that feature multiple routes which add replay value if you want to explore every inch of the maps. While the results aren’t flawless, gamers with more open minds and a willingness to deal with a few quirks will get a lot more out of what’s here than those who come in with a load of expectations. Continue reading →
The game is a cornucopia of doom and cuteness that features a single titanic enemy with that titular trillion hit points that needs to be stopped before it stomps all over the six layers of the Underworld after its ruler is severely incapacitated. Players can expect a hybrid of the classic Princess Maker with a shake of Disgaea-like humor and a initially daunting battle system where you pit sassy female Overlords against Trillion after training them in assorted skills pre-battle. There’s a lot more, but this isn’t a review as you’ll see when you read the next sentence under that screenshot below.
Guess what? Yours truly is currently in the process of reviewing the game, so I’ll have to keep you all in suspense for a wee bit other than to note quite an entertaining time is being had here. Back with more on Trillon shortly.
Thanks to so darn many indie games dropping from the sky these days (it’s a digital monsoon at times!), I’d never even heard of the one man show called Roland Studios or its wild PC game Daydreamer until I got word that Atlus was handling the PS4 (May 31, 2016) and Xbox One (June 3, 2016) publishing in North America. Updated with enhanced features and now called Daydreamer: Awakened Edition, all you need to do is ogle that mind-bending weirdness above and you know you’re in for a trip and a half.
If you like reading a bit more and that laser-eyed bunny above hasn’t freaked you out too much, here’s what to expect in the updated console version:
Daydreamer: Awakened Edition features:
• Twitchy Retro Gameplay – Those who live for intense side-scrolling, platforming, and shooting action will feel right at home, because players will shoot, whip, shield, jump, and warp their way to the Earth’s core. The design choices in the game harken back to gaming’s arcade classics!
• A Varied Combat System – With a dearth of different weapons and abilities at the daydreamer’s disposal, she will eradicate aliens with energy, homing, ray, helix, and flamethrower blasters, and melee mutants with her whips. She also has the abilities to shield against damage, warp to hard-to-reach areas, slow down time, and more. But they don’t come cheap—players must hunt for Psymatter in order to buy the weapons and items that will aid her along her hazardous journey.
• Powerful Pets – Psymatter also can be used to purchase/sustain a loyal pet companion to stay by your side to the death (or until you run out of Psymatter). From fuzzy turtles to vicious weasels, pets will offer invaluable support in varied forms to the daydreamer.
• Frightening Bosses – If normal aliens, mutants, robots, and bugs aren’t bad enough, the bosses of Daydreamer: Awakened Edition are truly terrifying to behold. The disturbing Mr. Smiles, the repulsive Grimeboy, and ferocious, but still kind of cute, Rabies Rabbit are just some of the creepy boss monsters brought to life in the game.
• Numerous Improvements – Since this is the Awakened Edition, that means there are a multitude of improvements and additions to the original release. Besides gameplay tweaks and balancing, there are now more difficulties, enhanced controls, improved combat, a ranked mode/leaderboard for the competitive, world map function, a brand new ending, and much more.
That sounds like a plan to me, folks. The strangeness will commence on those two newer platforms on the dates noted above. Hopefully the PC version will get the same updates as I know some gamers who only do their thing on PC will want what everyone else is having.
If you make it this far without losing a ball, you sir (or madam) are officially some sort of deity to be bowed down to.
tinyBuild Games decided to unleash a little surprise last week and allow some 3000 random Steam account holders to play a six stage Alpha version of Torched Hill‘s upcoming Road to Ballhalla, a game that’s a tiny bit hard to categorize. While it has a few similarities to Marble Madness and the 1998 PlayStation game Kula World (or Roll Away here in the states), Road to Ballhalla is more of a wall-less maze game where reaching the end of each level requires players changing their gameplay focus on a dime often within the same level. I guess you could all it a “puzzle” game if you like based on the simple visual style and rather cool music in that trailer below.
In case you didn’t watch the trailer and that previous sentence connotes “casual” to some of you core gamers who’d normally ignore something like this, you’re in for a big surprise. You can consider Road to Ballhalla the Dark Souls of indie puzzle games (or something *sexy* like that). Continue reading →
Ay Carumba! If you have a PSN account, a PS3, PS4, Vita and/or PSP and some money to burn or you just like some excellent deals on a handful of titles, get ready for so many deals that you’d think you were dreaming. This newest PSN Flash Sale has games for all the aforementioned consoles plus movies if you have the time to watch those once you blow your paycheck on a ton of discount game downloads. Anyway, check out the list on the PSN site or go ogle the post on the PlayStation Blog if you just want to read that long list and see what you’re missing out on.
While Crate Entertainment’s completed release version of its ARPG GRIM DAWN has been officially out on Steam since February 25, it’s just arrived on gog.com at a slight discount off the already low $24.99 price. The game has been in development for a while and while I’ve been tracking its progress from the shadows, I didn’t participate in the pre-release playable versions because I wanted to wait until the game was actually done and ready to buy. Some of the handful of folks on the dev team also worked on the great Titan Quest, so it was a no-brainer that GD would be flat out superb. Well, the problem now is if I buy it NOW, when the heck will I find time to PLAY it? My backlog is pretty massive as it is and I still need to pick up Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen for PC because I want to see how well it runs at 60fps and it was absolutely one of my favorite games of the previous console cycle.
Hmmm. Time for a coin toss, it seems. If it lands as it should, I may never see the light of day again. Well, for a few months at least.
When a game’s press info mentions classics The Legend of Zelda and Silent Hill as inspirations, it’s either going to be really great or really lousy. Fortunately, Baroque Decay’s excellent The Count Lucanor is not only really great, it’s one of those smartly designed “retro” games that does pretty much everything right. The game is funny, a bit frightening (and best played in the darkness) and definitely disturbing on a few fronts. While it’s not a lengthy experience at all, the about 5 hours it takes to play (which is your average 8 or 16-bit game length, not counting RPG or strategy titles) means it won’t wear out its welcome when all is said and done. Five different endings mean there’s replay value to be had if you want to see every possible outcome, but you can mildly abuse the save system if you don’t want to start from the beginning each time. Continue reading →
If you’re an Arrow Video collector here in the U.S., things are about to get even more interesting in your library thanks to the company’s SIX April releases through MVD Entertainment Group.
Only 3000 of this set will be made and as usual, Arrow is packing that LE box with both films and special features galore:
LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
Limited Edition boxed-set (3000 copies) containing Death Walks on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight
Brand new 2K restorations of the films from original film elements
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
Original Italian and English soundtracks in mono audio
Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtracks
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtracks
Limited Edition 60-page booklet containing new writing on the films from authors Danny Shipka (Perverse Titillation: The Exploitation Cinema of Italy, Spain and France), Troy Howarth (So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films) and writer Leonard Jacobs
DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS
Audio commentary by film critic Tim Lucas
Introduction to the film by screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi
From Spain with Love – featurette comprising newly-edited archive footage of director Luciano Ercoli and actress Nieves Navarro, interviewed at their home in Barcelona
Master of Giallo – screenwriter Gastaldi on Death Walks on High Heels and how to write a successful giallo
Death Walks to the Beat – a career-spanning interview with High Heels composer Stelvio Cipriani
Original Italian and English trailers
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx
DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT
Audio commentary by film critic Tim Lucas
Introduction to the film by screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi
Extended TV version of the feature
Crime Does Pay – screenwriter Gastaldi reflects on his career in the crime film-writing business, including a look at Death Walks at Midnight
Desperately Seeking Susan – visual essay by Michael Mackenzie exploring the distinctive giallo collaborations between director Luciano Ercoli and star Nieves Navarro
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx
And that’s only the first of six great genre films and film sets coming next month… Continue reading →
Well, it looks as if the console world (or at least the PlayStation 4) is getting its big VR headset at a surprisingly small price point of 399.00. Granted, many industry insiders (and thoughtful dopes like me) figured Sony wasn’t going to break gamer wallets too much. Let’s see now, A PS4 is about $280 or so depending on the model you buy, a PS Camera is $59.99 and with that PS VR headset, you still come in way under the price point of a gaming PC upgrade and one of the pricier VR solutions. Granted, PC gamers are scoffing at PS VR because they have scalable rigs thy can tweak to no end and most likely higher frame rates with overclocked systems burning holes into wherever they’re placed. Still, Sony promises a plug and play experience with frame rates up to 120fps, so we’ll see what’s what soon enough as the games roll out.
As for games, some 230 are in the works for PS4 from first and third party developers. My current favorite just so happens to be the return of a classic arcade and home game, this time coming from the folks at Rebellion:
Yes indeed, this one will be awesome even if it’s not running in VR (and yep, it’s playable without the headset, folks). Hokay, off to start saving those pennies.
Having seen my share of horror oddities on TV, in theaters an via assorted video formats since the 1970’s (okay, late 60’s if you count those Chiller Theater and Creature Feature reruns), I have to say Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood is way up there as one of the more bizarrely unfocused storytelling-wise but visually striking genre films I can recall. Thanks to Arrow Video, the film has been lovingly restored and presented as one of the three films in its must-own American Horror Project Volume 1.
Director Christoper Speeth‘s unusual flick is a loosely (VERY loosely) plotted tale of a family who’s invested in a run-down carnival that has some pretty grim secrets underneath its dilapidated thrill rides. Some viewers may note slight similarities to Carnival of Souls, Night of the Living Dead and certain silent films the movie itself spotlights at certain moments. While the film does suffer from a number of continuity issues no editor could fix thanks to many shots being done in a single take, the production design and overall tone here makes this one well worth watching. Trust me, if the bizarre found object set design doesn’t hook you in, it’ll be the general weirdness and downbeat tone you can feel from the outset that work their magic on your eyes and brain. Did I mention you also get to see singing ghouls and cannibalism by said ghouls here? Nope? Well, yes indeed you do. Continue reading →
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
It’s somewhat surprising that with so many RPGs available on the Nintendo 3DS, the old-school dirt simple hack & slash sub-genre is somewhat underrepresented. Granted, you’re probably not going to get a fancy looking Diablo or Torchlight-style game up and running on the 3DS hardware without some miracle coding skill and Nintendo completely missed the boat on localizing the fantastic DS game Soma Bringer to the west some years back. Thankfully, Rising Star Games has taken up the chase ‘n chop mantle with Ishi-Sengoku-Den “Sadame” (heretofore shortened to Sadame for the remainder of this review).
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 